1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates generally to the field of crowd simulation in computer software and, more specifically, to placing individuals and/or groups of individuals across a surface of a graphics object.
2. Description of the Related Art
Crowd simulation is the process of simulating a crowd having a large number of individuals placed in a computer-generated crowd area. Existing techniques for placing individuals within a computer-generated crowd area typically require a graphics designer to manually select locations within the crowd area where the individuals should be placed. This process is cumbersome, however, due to the ever-increasing size and complexity of crowd areas that are being employed (e.g., in video games and animated movies). For example, it is a challenging task for a graphics designer to place individuals across a crowd area that includes numerous obstacles, e.g., buildings, trees, poles, mailboxes, etc., each of which represents an invalid area for any individual to be placed. Moreover, it is difficult for the graphics designer to establish a natural diversity of individuals within the crowd area since attempting to do so requires the graphics designer to continually select from different types of individuals and to keep track of the numbers of types of individuals who have already been placed into the crowd area.
As the foregoing illustrates, what is needed in the art is an improved technique for placing individuals within a crowd area in computer-generated crowd simulation.